


Prune Juice

by AreYouReady



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: I'm Not Sure What's Going On Here, M/M, Pre-Slash, Quark Being Weird, Quark Trying To Flirt, Worf Brooding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-21 21:47:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9568184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AreYouReady/pseuds/AreYouReady
Summary: Worf is a creature of habit. His habits from the Enterprise don't transfer particularly well to DS9, but he tries.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [katiemariie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/katiemariie/gifts).



> I have no idea what this is.

“What’ll it be?” the little Ferengi asked, “Blood wine? Or maybe… _root beer?_ ” Worf felt the bartender’s eyes slide over his Starfleet uniform and bristled.

“Prune juice.” Worf answered. He wasn’t sure what the look Quark gave him meant, but he didn’t care.

-

By his second week on DS9, Worf was fairly sure he wasn’t going to find the particular sort of peace he wanted in Quark’s bar. He still came anyway. He was a creature of habit, and he would bend the world around him – or his beliefs about it – before breaking a customary behavior. So when he was in need of the particular state of mind offered to him by Ten Forward, he sought out Quark’s, and it made his mood worse every time. He would do better to sit in his quarters with replicated juice, and imagine himself sitting across from Guinan. But he could not stop.

The noise was too much if he sat on the ground floor, near the Dabo tables, but if he sat on the second floor, the chance was too great that some coworker would notice him and approach. He needed to work on discouraging that sort of thing. But the upshot of this dilemma was that he tended to sit at the bar, because the constant stream of insufferable Ferengi nonsense was still preferable to the crushing weight of sound or the expectation of politeness.

“What’ll it be, Worf?” asked Quark with a sneer. He was already pouring a glass of prune juice, though, and Worf glared at him. Quark shut his mouth, easily intimidated. A dishonorable trait, but sometimes, in his weaker moments, Worf was glad for the dishonorable traits of others. They certainly made things easier.

He watched as the bartender moved off to the other side of the bar, tilting his head to better hear the hairless Lurian who made a habit of sitting in that seat. Morn. The Lurian’s name was Morn. Lieutenant Dax had told him about Morn. She had said they would like each other. So far, he didn’t see how that could possibly be the case, given the Lurian’s insufferable penchant for gossip. But he was loathe to discount Lieutenant Dax’s suggestions so quickly; if she truly shared a consciousness with the great Curzon Dax, her deeds demanded his utmost respect.

The Ferengi laughed, the nasal sound carrying. It grated on Worf’s ears.

He glared at his prune juice.

-

He didn’t actually notice when exactly Quark stopped sneering at him when he came in. Nor when his prune juice started appearing before he took his seat. Nor when he first started thinking of the stool in the leftmost corner as “his seat.” But a few months after he came onto the station, all of those things had become true, and they were forced to his attention by a strange incident.

He’d been staring into his prune juice with a particular gloom, running over the incident with the Sword of Kahless again in his mind, and Quark had meandered over, almost as though he was simply moving around as his job demanded, mixing drinks and serving customers. Except each stop took him closer to Worf, and Worf was so distracted by this that he almost forgot to brood. By the time Quark finally reached him, Worf was openly staring at him. Quark gave him an appraising look.

“You know, Worf,” Quark began, “You come here almost every night, you drink your prune juice, you leave, you never say a word to anyone unless it’s to order, and you don’t even do that anymore. _Almost every night._ I’d ask you why you bother, but I’m not in the habit of enquiring into other people’s business unless they seem particularly unhappy with my service. And boy do you seem unhappy tonight. Got any troubles to share with your bartender?” Worf was confused. Of course, “making the customer feel welcome” was a valid business strategy, but Quark had almost seemed… apologetic. Worf couldn’t imagine for what.

“No,” he answered, but kept the glaring to a minimum.

“Suit yourself.” Quark turned away.

After mulling over the incident later, Worf realized that Quark had managed to lift his mood, albeit in a way that could not have been intentional. Worf had been so thrown by the Ferengi’s offer that he’d been totally distracted from his gloomy rumination. He frowned.

-

In the days after Eddington deserted, he did not go to Quark’s at all. In fact, he stayed in his quarters at all times when off duty. He considered calling someone from the _Enterprise_ on subspace, Counselor Troi or perhaps Guinan, in the hopes that their physical distance from the situation at hand would allow him some emotional distance, but… that would be strange. He did not want to drive the wedge already created by physical space deeper into those bonds. Katherine Pulaski came to mind – they had spoken on subspace at least once every few months since she had left the _Enterprise_ , so he would not be contacting her after a year of silence – but he did not think she would be an effective person to discuss matters like the cutting shame of this failure with. So he contacted no one.

On the fifth day of this routine, his door chime sounded at just before 0300 hours. He felt a surge of anger at the impoliteness – if this was a social call, it was ill-timed – but he was also curious. He buzzed his late night houseguest in, and prepared a glare as the door swished open.

He found himself directing the unpleasant look about four inches too high, and blinked. The caller at his door… was Quark?

The Ferengi bustled in, a bottle in one hand, a pair of small glasses in the other. He didn’t look at Worf, immediately scanned the room for a flat surface, and made a beeline for the standard issue coffee table that Worf had yet to adorn with his Kahless statue.

“Ferengi, what are you doing here?” Worf growled, coming out of his momentary speechlessness and crossing his arms.

“I think I ought to have at least graduated to ‘Bartender’ by now, given how much time we spend together.” Quark did not look at Worf as he set the bottle and glasses on the table, and struggled with the cork.

“We do not spend time together,” Worf griped, still off balance.

“You kidding? You’re my second best customer, or at least, my second most regular,” Quark tossed back, opening the bottle with a _pop_ , and pouring them both generous servings of thick, red liquid.

“Why are you in my quarters.” Worf was not one to stand for evasions.

“I just closed up.” Quark still wasn’t looking at him.

“Yes.” Worf was aware that the bar closed at 0200. He glared slightly harder in Quark’s direction.

“…Look,” Quark began, eventually, “You haven’t been around. And you know, there was that whole… issue. With that guy, and the Maquis. And I thought, ‘hey, maybe that’s why Worf hasn’t been around.’ And I came to see, alright?” Quark looked him in the eye for the first time.

“I don’t see what my behavior has to do with Lieutenant Commander Eddington,” Worf said, stiffly. Quark raised an eyeridge at him.

“Look, Worf, just. Sit down.” Quark pointed at the chair across from his own. “Have a drink. Talk to your bartender. Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours, alright?”

Worf squinted at him.

“I will sit, and I will drink. But I will not talk. And neither will you.” Worf compromised.

“Eh, suit yourself.” Quark took a sip of the dark red cocktail in his glass, as Worf took the seat across from him.

It was a long and silent night.

-

The next morning, Worf found himself in better spirits, despite a splitting headache. Or perhaps because of it. Whatever the red liquor was that Quark had given him, its painful aftereffects were a powerful distraction from his shame. After his shift, he found himself once again in the mood to visit Quark’s bar, and he slid into his usual spot without fanfare. He was presented with his prune juice without comment, but Quark’s gaze lingered on him nearly the whole night. The Ferengi seemed… distracted.

-

“So, tell me, Worf,” Quark began, on a night when business was particularly slow and Worf was nearly the only customer. “You’re here all the time, but I still don’t understand. What makes a guy like you spend your time in a place like this?”

Worf blinked. Quark had not attempted to speak with him since the night he appeared outside his quarters, weeks ago. And the words were stilted. Not something that Quark would ordinarily say, in Worf’s experience. (It was odd to think that he had been observing Quark closely enough, and for long enough, to know what he would ordinarily say.) But the words almost sounded like… What did Commander Riker call it? A line. Quark was attempting to use a _line_ on him. That was why the question was so incongruous, and so strangely phrased.

“Are you flirting with me, Bartender?” Worf asked.

“Maybe I am.”

**Author's Note:**

> My first attempt at writing Quark, which is unbelievably hard, actually. Also, I'm writing this for the Trek Rarepair Swap, except my recipient already wrote the magnum opus of this pairing so I don't even know what I have to contribute. But I did my best.


End file.
